The Tortured Rebel by Alison Roberts

they were getting much closer to their target. Whether they could reach it before dark was another matter. They’d need to stop soon and drink something. Put their masks back on, too, because he could feel a change in the air they were breathing. Soon. But not quite yet because he wasn’t ready to concentrate on the present. He needed to gather up the random shreds of memory and reaction and file them safely away.
    It wasn’t as though he didn’t still have a measure of that life force in his life. He got it from Max and Rick and now there were others contributing. Ellie and Sarah and the kids. Baby Mattie and Sarah’s boy, Josh. Jet wouldn’t have admitted it in a million years but theaddition of those kids to his inner circle of people was magic. The same kind of window back in time that Becca’s smile represented. But now that he’d seen it again, he realised they were just a pale imitation of the real thing.
    And that was why it was causing this peculiar pain. Because you couldn’t go back in time. You couldn’t change something as fundamental as the destruction of hero status and being sacked from the position of being the most important person to someone. As he had been by being blamed for Matt’s death.
    Becca had spent more than ten years blaming him. Hating him.
    Why on earth would he think that one smile might mean that had changed? It wasn’t the memory that was painful at all, was it? It was hope that her opinion of him had changed and that he could find his way back to that feeling of family. Hope that he knew would get crushed if he gave it any credibility.
    He didn’t even stop when the level ground was being left behind and a new and even tougher climb presented itself. It wasn’t that he was trying to punish Becca.
    He was punishing himself. For hoping.
    Daylight was beginning to fade but Becca barely noticed.
    She was numb to everything but the need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and breathe often enough to keep the burning sensation in her chest to a minimum. Taking her sunglasses off would help but the air felt gritty now and her eyes stung. Jet had produced fresh masks for them both when they’d stopped to drink the last of the bag of treated water a while back.
    For ever ago. Becca had long since given up trying to keep any track of time. Her brain was as numb as her body but she kept going because if she didn’t, Jet would pick her up and carry her and he had to be already hurting as much as she was. He was definitely limping and she’d seen the way he’d frozen for a moment to shut his eyes and deal with pain when he’d taken too much weight on that foot climbing over a rock not so long ago.
    She’d have to see if she could help by strapping it up or something when they finally stopped.
    If
they ever stopped. Surely they were close to the top of this ridge by now. They might see the settlement building then and it would be stupid to waste hours waiting for daylight if they were within visual range of the people who needed them. The need wasn’t one-sided, either. She and Jet badly needed the closest thing to civilisation on this island. They needed water and food and rest.
    A place they could be rescued from along with everyone else.
    Staying upright and continuing to move was more than an extreme challenge now. Becca slipped on something loose. Or maybe her legs just gave way. She had to grab at a scrubby bush for a handhold but that was loose, too, and it came away in her hand.
    The whole bank seemed to be shivering. Moving. Becca was on her hands and knees. She lost her grip on the bag of supplies and items were spilling out and bouncing away down the slope. Clean, white bandages in their plastic wrappings seemed to glow in the gathering dusk. A loud, roaring sound increased and Becca was sure it was inside her head. She was about to faint,having gone past the physical limits she could push herself to.
    Being gripped by her upper arms and hauled to her feet was